Medical certificate requirement slows handgun sales

Doctors confused on procedure

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The recent regulation imposed by the Ministry of the Interior, requiring that applicants for licences for handguns should produce a doctor’s certificate indicating the applicant’s mental health, has significantly reduced sales of handguns.
      The situation affecting the firearms retail business was reported by the online financial daily Taloussanomat on Thursday.
     
The Ministry of the Interior issued an order a month ago, according to which police cannot grant a licence for a handgun without a statement from a doctor that the applicant is in mentally fit.
      The order, signed by Minister of the Interior Anne Holmlund (Nat. Coalition Party) states that someone wanting a handgun must show police a doctor’s statement certifying the applicant’s mental health, and especially that the person is not in danger of harming him, or herself, or others.
      Significantly fewer handgun permits are being granted than before. According to one gun dealer, sales have declined to a fraction of the previous level.
      “The guideline that was hastily drawn up by the Ministry of the Interior has caused a real impasse; nothing is happening in handgun sales”, says Timo Huikkala, CEO of the gun seller Asetalo.
      “Debate on the whole issue has been unchanged since the tragic events at Kauhajoki”, Huikkala says. In his view, banning the sale of pistols and revolvers would not solve the problem linked with the dangers of firearms.
     
Doctors are wondering about the new regulation. The Finnish Medical Association has been flooded with enquiries from doctors asking how they should proceed in such matters, so that the certificates that they give can be seen as officially valid, and that they would be protected from possible accusations of giving false statements, says the association’s executive director Heikki Pälve.
      Pälve says that the pain felt by state civil servants is understandable in the wake of the Kauhajoki mass killing, but he says that the Ministry of the Interior showed poor administrative skills by failing to discuss the matter first with the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health.
     
Representatives of the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health, and the Lotteries and Firearms Unit of the Ministry of the Interior will gather on Thursday to ponder guidelines for doctors for issuing such certificates.
      Interior ministry official Jouni Laiho says that the aim of a doctor’s certificate is to provide the police with all possible information on gun licence applicants.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Medical Association: Responsibility for firearms licences should remain with police (1.10.2008)
  Mental health certificate now required for handgun ownership (30.9.2008)
  Working group considering new weapons legislation starts work Monday (29.9.2008)
  Government wants to restrict access to handguns (25.9.2008)
  Prime Minister open to ban on private possession of handguns (24.9.2008)

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